About the Book
Code Gray is a "provocative and meaningful" (Theresa Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Healing) narrative-driven medical memoir that places you directly in the crucible of urgent life-or-death decision-making, offering insights that can help us cope at a time when the world around us appears to be falling apart.In the tradition of books by such bestselling physician-authors as Atul Gawande, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Danielle Ofri, this beautifully written memoir by an emergency room doctor revolves around one of his routine shifts at an urban ER. Intimately narrated as it follows the experiences of real patients, it is filled with fascinating, adrenaline-pumping scenes of rescues and deaths, and the critical, often excruciating follow-through in caring for patients' families. Centered on the riveting story of a seemingly healthy forty-three-year-old woman who arrives in the ER in sudden cardiac arrest, Code Gray weaves in stories that explore everything from the early days of the Covid outbreak to the perennial glaring inequities of our healthcare system. It offers an unforgettable, "discomfiting, and often bracing" (Bloomberg Businessweek) portrait of challenges so profound, powerful, and extreme that normal ethical and medical frameworks prove inadequate. By inviting you to experience what it is like to shift in the ER from a physician's perspective, we are forced to test our beliefs and principles. Often, there are no clear answers to these challenges posed in the ER. You are left feeling unsettled, but through this process, we can appreciate just how complicated, emotional, unpredictable--and yet strikingly beautiful--life can be.
About the Author :
Farzon A. Nahvi is an ER physician at Concord Hospital in Concord, New Hampshire, and a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Prior to this, he worked as an ER physician and clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Mount Sinai Health System, NYU Langone Health, NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, and the Manhattan VA. He is a graduate of Cornell University and NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Daily News (New York), New York magazine, and other publications. In April 2019, he testified as an expert witness before Congress in the nation's first Medicare for All hearing. Farzon A. Nahvi is an ER physician at Concord Hospital in Concord, New Hampshire, and a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Prior to this, he worked as an ER physician and clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Mount Sinai Health System, NYU Langone Health, NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, and the Manhattan VA. He is a graduate of Cornell University and NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Daily News (New York), New York magazine, and other publications. In April 2019, he testified as an expert witness before Congress in the nation's first Medicare for All hearing. Aden Hakimi is a voice-over actor based in Brooklyn. He studied theater performance at Northeastern University in Boston, with adjunct studies at Cambridge University in England and the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin. For over a decade, he has done voice work for audiobooks, commercials, animation, and corporate videos.
Review :
"An amazing guide to the portal separating life and death, sickness and health, and the real world and the hospital--that is, the modern emergency department."
-- "Theresa Brown, author of Healing"
"ER memoirs have become a reliable genre...but this addition is a cut above many of them...A moving, thoughtful memoir of life in the medical trenches."
-- "Kirkus Reviews"
"Narrator Aden Hakimi effectively channels the author's reflectiveness and compassion. Just like the doctor we would wish for in a crisis, Hakimi sounds assured and calm as he delivers terrible stories with careful attention and kindness."
-- "AudioFile"
"Timely and nuanced, Farzon Nahvi's exploration of health care probes the grayscale of life...We are ever more in need of clear-eyed books like Code Gray."
-- "Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error"
